O Mother Dear- Reburn (Ireland) 1860 Child M
[No title was supplied for this fragment of The Cruel Mother so I've used the first line. Child had written that “fragments are on no account to be despised, however brief,” and Margaret Reburn sent her fragments of Irish ballads. Child published six of Reburn's fragments.]
O Mother Dear- Version M
Communicated by Miss Margaret Reburn, as learned in County Meath, Ireland, about 1860.
'O mother dear, when we were thine,
All a lee and aloney O
You neither dressed us in coarse or fine.'
Down by the greenwood sidy O